Frostbite
by Rayne Fenrir
Summary: Rukia Kuchiki. Oneshot. Set mainly in Soul Society Arc.


oOo

Rukia Kuchiki.

Strange, strange girl. Woman.

People meeting her for the first time would automatically set her in the "frigid" "cold" or "emotionless" category. Rarely smiled, laughing even less, before everything changed.

She had never really got the chance to live out her life. Dead as a baby, abandoned by her sister, parents who knew where. She drifted aimlessly like a wind in the early parts of her life, as the harsh reality of the streets helped the ice slowly freeze over her heart and incase her.

Then she saved some idiot red-haired, pineapple-head (Though she couldn't hope to know what a pineapple was,) boy and his cronies from a wicked old man. Sure, they were stealing. But it was how they, who had no one to shelter them, no one to protect them, survive. She had done it for so long, as far as her mind could remember-

And so, she had a family. It was strange, especially for her, being drawn in like water droplets, unwillingly, yet curious. What did warmth feel like? What did other people like her, feel like?

So she had a family, like the tattered patches of a quilt that are stitched haphazardly together.

The ice that had taken over her life melted a fraction.

But in the end, cold won out. Again.

One by one, thoughs she had called family, friends, died. In the land of Death, they had been taken again. And just like the flames of candles being snuffed out, she felt a little place of which person had taken place in her heart, grow cold.

She had one person left.

And so, they left the graves behind and turned to their own futures.

They became Soul Reapers. Death Gods.

So she learned, learned the name of the blade of her soul. Felt part of that familiar ice take a new life, piercing, fresh, white. Pure. Such an unworthy sword for such a filthy sinful person, yet so fitting.

Then he came. A man of grace, of equal, cold indifference. He invited to join a noble's family. A dream that had come real, if she was anybody else.

Unfortunately, she wasn't anybody else.

He was going to take her away. From the only family she had left.

She begged her friend. Her one friend, not to let him take her away, she begged with her soul, her whole mind, even if the words failed to cross her lips.

He congratulated her.

Just like that, the bind had snapped.

So she found herself alone again. Stuck in a noble family and outcasted. She was stuck between two worlds- She was a street whelp, taken in like a stray-dog. No true noble with any sense would associate with her- She was a high noble, the normal people would never dream of associating with her. She had everything. She had nothing.

Who would ever guess?

She wasn't sad. She wasn't happy. She was just numb. Perfect for a noble.

It didn't matter anyway. She was slowly slipping away into the dead winter her heart had so kindly provided her.

Then a snotty lieutenant had to show up.

Like a outstretched hand, a part of her, stretched out to this person, like a shoot stretching out instinctually toward the sun. The ice melted again, a fraction. The eternal winter marching around her heart

And she killed him.

She killed him.

It was an accident, some said.

It was self-defense, said others.

If only they knew.

It was fear.

Fear named Rukia Kuchiki, who was slowly waking to things she did not want to feel. To the Kuchiki with dark hair and a pure white blade and so empty inside they're was hardly any difference between her and the Hollows she slew. It was fear and events that conspired against her, never let this frozen ice princess be anything but. Yet somehow, she managed. She wasn't swallowed alive as the cold penetrated every corner of her soul. It was the only thing she knew. She had suffered frostbite too many times after so many thaws to try again.

Years passed, time was nothing to someone so frozen.

And then quite suddenly, they met.

With a _kick._

She acted childishly, so different from her usual self, acted like the child she had missed out on being. This arrogant, loud-mouthed bastard of a boy, with his mussed, freakishly orange hair and permanent scowl. But even as she looked on this one, his outlines blurred with those of someone she knew.

Nevermind.

Foolish boy.

Yet she found herself propped against a wall, her blade before her, this boy standing before her. They were going to die if she didn't do what she was about to. But it would never work, a part of her screamed. She would kill this boy too. Her face may be the last thing he would ever see.

_My name isn't "death god". It's Rukia Kuchiki._

_Ichigo Kurosaki. Let's pray this isn't our last meeting._

Both were unafraid.

She trusted him.

This boy she barely _knew. _And she trusted him more then the ground she was sitting on.

It was irrational.

It was insanity.

Yet little was she to know how far this boy would go. He lived for the impossible. An insane, surreal bond.

So two became one. Sort of.

She trained him, though he was a terrible student. Horrible. He didn't listen, he called her names impproper of a noble. And she got angry. She! It was so childish, so unbeleivable. The ice princess Kuchiki, stamping her foot, throwing things.

They fought like cats a dogs. He called her midget. She called him a fool. He brought a side in her she hadn't known existed, cynical, sassy. But they were partners. Somehow, they made it work. She watched as more and more of his own heart came into play. More of the "stuff" that made up this irresponsible, one-track mind boy. She watched as he grew in strength, incredibly fast. Even as she felt her own powers ebb away, she felt such pride in this accidental occurence that had changed everything so quickly.

Impossible.

And yet, somehow they did it.

Her heart was thawing again. How many chances was God going to torment her with?

She made friends. Friends. Another shocking occurence. She got a glance at a life she could never have, a life with juice boxes, and chappy merchandise, and being a (somewhat) normal student at a normal (also somewhat)highschool, and all sorts of things she had never dreamed of. She got to live it, if only for a little while.

She was so undeserving.

And finally, reality came crashing back in.

She had to leave. She had to protect them, protect him, her stupid mistake, her unavoidable accident. She knew what would happen, played out before her like a movie.

And yet, he came after her, this arrogant boy with piercing choclate amber eyes, and a fire that made her tremble. She wanted desperately to sink back into the icy indifference she used to be so familiar with. It was safe. There was no need to care. No need to get hurt, again. Something that had rapidly been rapidly becoming a vague memory.

He was near unbearable at times. He had a crazy family with a huge gaping hole in it that they struggled to cope with. He was arrogant, he was protective. He was hot-headed, but carried his own darkness, his own regrets. He was singular of thought. Stupid man.

She left him a note, explaining how he needed to hide so they wouldn't find him. Stupid, stupid mistake. She should have known he would never listen. That he would be so dumb as to come after her.

She ran, but they found her of course. Her once family, and her supposed family. How perfect.

Her friend was there, and even as she pleaded for them to leave him be, her mistake came. He came, eyes defiant and blazing with that strange fierceness that made something shoot up her spine, prickling her skin. She was surprised he had come.

It was no contest. She watched as he fell in a puddle of his own blood. The rain fell that they both hated. A tie between them. Her "brother" and her former family watched with distaste. She had failed to keep him away.

Even then, even then, he struggled to keep her from going. She had to protect him. Her "brother" relinquished the final blow. As she put up her icy facade in attempt to appease. Tears burned her eyes as she watched his eyes widen in shock as hateful words fell from her lips, seeming to strike his pitiful, broken body like physical blows.

She left him there, dying. No, she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind. Even if it defied reason. He had an insane will to live. He would survive, he could survive. He didn't need her. It was foolishness for her to even entertain the idea. She didn't need him either.

He would live.

She could rest in that.

_thanks to you, the rain has stopped_

When she found out she was to be excecuted, it was nothing. In her mind, she had already nearly faded away anyway. She lost anything that was left of her will and resigned herself to her doomed fate peacefully.

And then, their was a disturbance.

Of course. She should have known. Who else had always ruined the peace she had, her attempts to keep her proper, indifferent image? Who always drove her to the edge of sanity?

A man with a blade as tall as he was. With orange hair.

Ichigo.

He had survived despite her thought.

Why?

That had been her first thought. Why? Why come all this way to save someone not worth it at all?

So she prayed. To whatever God seemed to be tormenting her.

_Please, run away _

_Please make them go back_

_Run away_

Her prayer was unanswered. They came, her friends that she hadn't beleived would ever follow, he came, refusing to fall. Till he beat his body to dust, was cut endlessly, spilled his blood and sweat. She didn't want blood shed for her, someone so unworthy. It was agony as the reports came.

She wanted to fade away. She wanted the numb blank cold to blur her outlines, and make her dissappear into oblivion. As the huge phoneix prepared to destroy every fiber that was Rukia, to destroy her utterly, he came. And somehow, did it. Saved her. Impossible. Not even a one in a billion chance, should he have been able to do what he had done.

He lived for the impossible.

He refused to let her go. Stubborn asshole. She wanted to scream at him, but releif was to busy overfilling her with every single bottled-up emotion she had ever had.

Somehow, somehow, in the end, he beat all odds. He beat her "brother", he beat any in his way till exhausted beyond mortal abilities. and somehow, it all played out. Impossibility had suddenly become slightly pheasible. How incredulous.

So stubborn.

Why? Why risk it all? Why sacrifice so much?

Why?

She didn't understand.

Perhaps he was just stupid. Perhaps he just thought he needed her. Perhaps his one-track mind had-

But something in her gut that she refused to acknowledge knew very well otherwise.

So she swore she would live. And that she would stay behind. They both knew somehow it would not be for long.

She would regain all the power she had lost and more. She would become strong. So she could fight beside him, fight beside all of them. And so that he would never again have to do what he had done for her. She swore.

And even then she had to ignore her own feelings. Feelings were useless human emotions. Shackles. He was the root of it, of course.

Blurred outlines.

Rukia Kuchiki. A warrior. A woman. Innocent, yet Tainted.

Messing with her may result in frostbite. Afterall, she knows the feeling well.

Meeting her may result in your life never being the same.

Just ask Ichigo Kurosaki.

oOo


End file.
